HARD NOISE: THE OCEAN // Deliver Unreleased Track (and A Biology Lesson)

Get the snorkel and flippers ready, because German prog collective The Ocean are back, diving down to the watery depths with their crushing new track Turritopsis Dohrnii.

Tracked in the sessions for the group’s 2013 masterpiece Pelgial, Turritopsis shows off the instrumental side of the group, with churning guitars rumbling beneath a steady march of thunderous percussion. Listen below:

Talking about the name of the track, founder Robin Staps reveals that ‘Turritopsis dohrnii’ “is a jellyfish that lives in the Mediterranean, it is the only immortal species on Earth.”

“They start their lives as polyps which are basically something closer to a plant than to an animal, something that grows on a rock. The result becomes the free-swimming medusa, a jellyfish… Once the adult form of the species have reproduced, they revert back into their juvenile polyp state. They shrink, their tentacles disappear and they sink to the ocean floor to start their unique life cycle all over again… and not just once, but infinitely.

This track begins and ends with the same part, reflecting that eternal cycle.”

Having always crafted their music around the complexity of the ocean and it’s inhabitants, Staps notes that the structure of Turritopsis reflects the unique lifespan of the creatures, telling listeners that “This track begins and ends with the same part, reflecting that eternal cycle. Learning about this tiny creature made me think about how we are desperately striving for physical rejuvenation and intellectual immortality.”

The track is set to feature exclusively on the forthcoming In The Twilight These Rocks Have Teeth compilation, a collection of tunes by artists associated with Pelagic Records, of which Staps is the founder, and is due for official release on the 29th of September.

Thankfully, while it’s been four years since any new material has surfaced from the band, it seems that releasing takes from the cutting room floor and running record labels isn’t the band’s main focus moving forward.

“We have consciously decided to take our time with this next album, and we all focused on different stuff for a while, which was really important in order to understand what it is that we are doing and why we’re doing it and why we want to keep doing it” says Staps.

“You can expect a new album in 2018…or two.”